Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-11-18
must be quiet while We close the service
"Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian low, -

"Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love-"
The earth is diametered and circumfer-
enced with discord, and the music that was
rendered at the laying of the worlds cor
ner stone, when the morning stars sang
together, is not heard now; and though
here and there, from this and that part of
society, and from this and that part of the
EARN, there comes up thrilling solo of
love, or MARBLE of worship. or sweet
duet OF patience, they are drowned out by
discord that shakes the earth.
Paul says: "The whole creation groan-
eth;" and while the nightingale. aud the
woodlark, and the canary, and the plover,
sometimes sing so sweetly that their notes
have been written out in musical notation,
and it is found that the cuckoo sings in the
key of d, and that the cormorant is a basso
III the winged choir, yet sportsman's gun
and the autumnal blast often leave them
ruffied and bleeding, or dead in the meadow
or forest. Paul was right, for the groan in
nature browns out the prima donnas of the
sky.
Tartini, the great musical composer,
dreamed one night that he made contract
with Satan, the latter to be ever in the
composers service. But one night he
handed to Satan violin, on which Dia-
bolus played such sweet music that the
composer was awakened by the emotion
and tried to reproduce the sounds, and
therefrom was written Tartini's most fa-
nous piece, entitled the Devils Sonata, :"
{, dream ingenios but faulty, for all melody
descends from Heaven, and only discords
ascend from hell. Allhatreds, feuds, con-
troversies. backbitings, and revenges are
the devils sonata, are diabolic fugue, are
demoniac phantasy, are grand march of
doom, are allegro of perdition.
But if in this world things in general are
out of tune to our frail ear, how much
more SO to ears angelic and deific. It takes
skilled artist fully to appreciate Disagree
ment of sound. Many have no capacity to
detect defect of musical execution, and,
though there were in one bar as many of.
lenses against harmony as could crowd in
between the lower + of the bass and the
higher q of the soprano, it would give
them no discomfort, while on the forehead
OF the educated artist beads of perspiration
would stand out as q result of the harrow
ing dissonance. While an amateur was
performing on piano and had Just struck
the wrong chord, John Sebastian Bach, the
immortal composer, entered the room. and
the amateur rose in embarrassment, and
Bach rushed past the host, who stepped
forward to greet him, and before the key
board had stopped vibrating, put his adroit
hand upon the keys and changed the
painful inharmony into glorious cadence
Then Bach turned ana gave salutation to
the host who had invited him.
But the worst of all discords is moral
discord. If society and the world are pain
fully discordant to imperfect man, what
must they be to perfect God? People
try to define what sin is. 1t seems to me
that sin is getting out of harmony with
God, disagreement with his holiness,
with His purity, with His love, with His
commands; our will clashing with His will,
the finite dashing against the infinite, the
frail against the puissant, the created
against the Creator. If thousand mu-
sicians, with flute, and cornet- o. piston,
boys, and trombone, and all the wind and
stringed instruments that ever gathered in
Dusseldorf jubilee, should resolve that
they would play out of tune and put con-
cord to the rack, and make the place wild
with shrieking, and grating, and rasping
sounds, they could not make such pande-
moEium as that which RACES in O sinful
soul when God listens to the play of its
thoughts, passions, and emotions-discord,
lifelong discord, maddening discord. The
world pays more for discord than it does
for consonance. High prices have been
paid for music. One man gave 1925 to
hear the Swedish songstress in New York,
and another 1928 to hear her in Boston.
and another $3.50 TO hear her in Provi-
dence. Fabulous prices have been paid
for sweet sounds, but far more has been
paid for discord. The Crimean war cost
ST, zoo, 600, 900, and our American civil wal
over S9,50O,O0O,O 900, and the war debts OF
professed Christian nations are about $15,-
900, 0U0,0 600. The world pays for this red
ticket, which admits it to the saturnalia OF
broken bones, and death agonies, and de.
stroyed cities, and plowed graves, and
crushed hearts, any amount of money
Satan asks. Discord! Discord!
But have to tell you that the song that
the morning stars sang together at the lay
ing of the worlds corner stone is to be re-
sumed again. Mozarts greatest overture
was composed one night when he was
several times overpowered with sleep, and
artists say they can tell the places in the
music where he was falling asleep and the
ture of the morning stars spoken of in my
text has been asleep, but it will awaken
and be more grandly rendered by the even
ing stars of the worlds existence than by
the morning stars. and the vespers will be
sweeter than the mathis. The work of all
good men and women and of all good
churches and all reform associations is to
bring the race back to the original har-
mony. The rebellious heart to be attuned,
social life to be attuned, commercial ethics
to be attuned, Internationally to be at
tuned, hemispheres to be attuned-but by
| what force aud in what way?
In olden time the choristers had a tun-
ing fork with two prongs, and they would
strike it on the back of pew or music rack
and put it to the ear and then start the
tune, and all the other voices would join.
In modern orchestra the leader has COM
plete instrument, richly attuned. and he
sounds that, and all the other performers
turn the keys of their instruments to make
them correspond, and sound the bow over
the string, and listen, and sound out over
again, until all the keys are screwed to con-
cert pitch, and the discords melt into one
great symphony, and the curtain hoists.
and the baton taps, and audiences are
raptured with Schumann's paradise and
the Peri" or Rossinni's "Stabat Mater" or
Bach's "Magniticat" in d or Gounod's "Re-
demption."
few days ago I was in Fairbanks
Weighing scale mandatory of Vermont.
Six hundred hands, and they have never had
strike. Complete harmony between labor
and capital, the operatives OF scores of
years in their beautiful homes near by the
mansions of the manufacturers, whose in
sol E,l> ,11< H.,